HUBLOT LOVES ART IN CHICAGO WITH HEBRU BRANTLEY

May 6, 2016 (Chicago, IL) – Last night, luxury Swiss watch brand Hublot, in partnership with Lake Forest Sportscars and fine watch retailer Geneva Seal, hosted a rare inside look at the studio and creative process of renowned Chicago-based artist Hebru Brantley. Hublot, a brand at the forefront of art and design, has partnered with a range of world-renowned artists, architects, and innovators including Oscar Niemeyer, Mr. Brainwash, Maestro Carlos Cruz-Diez, Maxime Büchi, Romero Britto, and Lang Lang and continues to celebrate its Art of Fusion by merging the multi-dimensional worlds of watchmaking and art.

A cornerstone of the Chicago Art movement and inspired by his 1980’s Chicago upbringing, Brantley’s work touches on tough subjects in a way that is easily digestible to the viewer – by telling his stories through youthful characters and their adventures. The first collaboration between Brantley and Hublot occurred during Art Basel Miami 2013, when the artist’s works were installed as an interactive experience on the grounds of a seaside villa on Star Island in Miami and the windows of the Bal Harbour Boutique.

This time, guests were invited to tour the artists workspace and look deeply into Brantley’s artwork. The space featured a collection of finished and unfinished paintings by Brantley as well as his famed Fly Boy and Lil’ Mama sculptures. While in the artists studio, guest enjoyed hors d’oeuvres and cocktails named after Hublot’s iconic timepiece collections –the Classic Fusion, the Big Bang and the All Black – while browsing the latest Hublot collection. The event also served as an opportunity for guests to see the Ferrari California T in iconic red – an exemplar of Italian engineering. Hublot, the exclusive 360° partner of Ferrari serves as both the " Official Watch" and "Official Timekeeper” of Scuderia Ferrari and the Ferrari brand globally.

Hublot’s embrace of art and luxury timekeeping dates back to 2011 partnership with the iconic architect Oscar Neimeyer to design the Official Countdown Clocks of the 2014 FIFA World Cup BrazilTM (for which Hublot served as the Official Timekeeper and Official Watch). These three clocks – the last project to have been personally led by the late Oscar Niemeyer – were placed around Brazil in anticipation of the world- famous games that summer.

Romero Britto, whose art is influenced by the Pop Art and Cubism art movements, also partnered with Hublot during that time to design and paint the multicolored football-inspired watch case for Hublot’s limited edition 2014 World Cup BrazilTM-related pieces. This motif was extended to the “Hublot Loves Football Campaign”, a football (soccer)-fueled photographic exhibition, which toured globally. Successive limited edition enamel timepieces, including unique one-off art pieces, have since been made with the wildly successful artist.

Most recently, during Art Basel 2015, Hublot launched a series of limited edition timepieces in collaboration with the famed Franco-Venezuelan artist Maestro Carlos Cruz-Diez, one of the leading figures and key representatives of kinetic-optic art. Hublot invited Carlos Cruz-Diez to adapt one of his works — Chromointerférence (1964) — to three of its timepieces, for which juxtaposed colored lines were printed on the dials. Superimposed over these fixed designs is a mobile black frame which moves every minute, generating new ranges of colors which do not exist on the support, and changing the perception of the previous ranges. This allows the dials to offer a harmonious show of different colors over a 12-hour period.